054- Covid-19 and Kennels with Zach Shearer
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Summary: How have kennels been impacted during the Covid-19 pandemic? Zach Shearer joins us this week to discuss his business, how he’s adapted to changes, and his outlook for the rest of 2020.
Topics on this episode:
What it’s been like the past several months
Unique challenges to kennels
New CDC guidelines
How clients and community have responded
What the rest of 2020 looks like
Main take away? Every aspect of the pet care industry has been impacted in different ways, and kennels are having to adapt.
About our guest:
Zach Shearer of Zach’s Pet Services, LLC has a passion for animals and has been caring for pets since he was just ten years old. Zach has continued his entrepreneurial adventure as Owner/Operator of Zach’s Pet Services, located in Roanoke, Indiana. Zach’s currently offers dog and cat boarding, doggy daycare and full-service grooming. At Zach’s we truly care for each and every client in our care and treat them as part of our family, both our two and four-legged clients.
Links:
Give us a call! (636) 364-8260
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Email us at: feedback@petsitterconfessional.com
A VERY ROUGH TRANSCRIPT OF THE EPISODE
Provided by otter.ai
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
dogs, people, pet, boarding, customers, daycare, grooming, business, doggy daycare, services, challenges, day, operate, clients, zach, stay, staff, home, guidelines, affecting
SPEAKERS
Zach Shearer, Collin
Zach Shearer 00:00
He said that it's all gonna come through. And, you know, there's obviously been challenging times that we've all been through before. You know whether that's personal or with business and we'll get through them.
00:25
I'm calling and I'm Megan, and this is pet sitter, confessional,
00:28
and open and honest discussion about life as a pet sitter.
Collin 00:35
Well, hello and welcome back. COVID-19 has impacted the pet services industry in deep and varied ways. And we probably aren't going to see the full extent to these alterations to the industry for years to come. From dog walking to grooming to daycares all have been impacted in unique ways. We brought on Zack shear on Have Zach's pet sitting to discuss how kennels and boarding facilities have been impacted through this. Zach also discusses how he's had to adapt and change some of the services and ways they offer them to stay operating and provide the services that his community needs. Now let's get started.
Zach Shearer 01:15
Thank you Colin for having me today. I'm Zack chair. I'm the owner operator of Zach's pet services in Roanoke, Indiana. We're located between Fort Wayne and Huntington. We offer doggy daycare dog and cat boarding, full service grooming and we recently implemented a wedding wagon service where we take dogs to weddings to have them be part of your special day. So I live on site of my business here in Reno with my wife and my son. He'll be two next week. So he keeps us on our toes. And then we have an 80 pound chocolate lab named Hank. And he's kind of our office greeter here. So I started this when I was 10 years old. At my mom and dad's house, I boarded dogs and would also go in and do pet sitting for, you know, family and friends, and then it just kind of grew from there. We recently opened our business here four years ago. So we haven't really been at this level for that long. It was just something that, you know, I always wanted to do, and it was in my blood. And so if you add up the years together, it's been about 16 years now that I've been doing the pet boarding and pet sitting. Obviously, we don't do the pet selling anymore, just the services at our location now, but it's definitely went crazy. And we've gotten busier and busier as the years What's going on?
Collin 02:37
I was gonna say for that. That seems like an awful lot that you've gotten up in the air at any given time after just opening four years ago. So what's that growth been like for you?
Zach Shearer 02:46
Right? Well, first, I would describe it as overwhelming. There's some challenges along the way, and we definitely grew faster than we were expecting too. Don't get me wrong, we knew we would be successful and I always knew that, you know, it was in my passion and I love animals. And that was something I would do forever. I can remember every pet and the name of the face of the pet and the owner as they come in the door. And so that's just definitely my gift. But I saw, I knew it would be successful, but I never thought that it would take off this fast. So with that, that's kind of challenges when we built this facility here. We remodeled existing buildings, and we probably should have, you know, done that three times the size of what we did. You know, it you got to start somewhere and you've got to expand somewhere. So, that's definitely met challenges, but it's also been, you know, a really rewarding time to you know, we've had customers that have come in for boarding and they're like, you know, what, can we do more can you can you do doggy daycare, things like that. So, as time goes on, you just you learn to you change your services, and that's what makes you unique to my wife often mentions that, you know, the key to a good business is to make sure that You are constantly creating new ideas and new things. So for our customers, we'll come up with fun events and fun things throughout the year. And, you know, just like with the wedding service, you know, we had a customer ask us if we could potentially board their dog and then bring it to their wedding so that they didn't have to mess with the transportation. And so we did it and we're like, hey, this can be something that, you know, we could, we could really do. And we with our own wedding, we wanted our dog Hank in it. And, you know, after the wedding, he was just running around with hundreds of people and just hanging out with us. So my grandfather took him home. And we're like, there is a need for that, you know, that's a unique service, but that's something that definitely could be beneficial. So just like you know, with any any business, it's nice to create new things and that keeps your customers constantly wanting more and to see you know, what's next? Yeah, it's definitely been overwhelming but very rewarding.
Collin 04:50
You touched on your your facility that you remodeled. It's pretty cool. You've got a really neat area there. You tell us a little bit more about the facility that you've got You have
Zach Shearer 05:01
Yeah, absolutely. I think the biggest thing that draws our customers there and and even people you know, via social media is all the outdoor room we have for the dogs to get exercise to socialized and you know, to not be just locked up in a crate all day. So we have our grooming shop in our office area in one building. And so those grooming customers, those dogs come in and they stay in that building. We take them out on you know, potty breaks and walk so they're not just sitting all day. A lot of them are appointment based anyway, so they're just in there for an hour or two at a time. And then we also have the kennel building with individual kennel friends, so the dogs are asleep separate, but we have big yards that are pea gravel filled so that the dogs don't get super muddy and that's where the boarding and the daycare dogs play and interact with one another. And they definitely that I think that's the biggest thing that draws people in is the space you know, they're not just going into a dark, confined building. You know, and with crates everywhere, they have plenty of room and they definitely feel comfortable and it can just be a home away from home.
Collin 06:05
Yeah, no, it is really cool. I'm gonna include some links in the show notes for people to go and check that out. Because the first thing I noticed too, is like, Wow, that is a lot of space for all those dogs. That's really neat.
Zach Shearer 06:16
Yeah, absolutely. And they enjoy it. They run and play all the time. And we get the pools out in the summertime. And we just want it to be you know, like kids going and playing in a park or something, you know, they're your family too. So you just want to make sure that they're treated that way
Collin 06:30
because you have such a really neat facility. We wanted to have you on to give a different perspective on the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the pet care industry. A lot of our audience are pet walkers or do drop ins and do daycares. But we do have a considerable number of people who board at facilities like like you have so what are the past few months been like for you running running your your company in your facility?
Zach Shearer 07:00
Definitely with this the COVID-19 outbreak in general it's definitely taking a toll on all business owners but we're all affected differently. Originally the governor of Indiana, he declared grooming non essential but he kept boarding open for you know, those people that need to go away for to be with family that is sick or you know, work related travel, things like that. This all hit at our spring break time, which is our biggest time we're usually operating at full capacity. So this happened the week before all of those borders were to come in. And so that first day that this really came out and they put the travel ban on, they were like, you know, people were calling I think I had in one of our Facebook posts that we had 37 people cancel their boarding reservations for spring break in 48 hours. So at first it was you know, very overwhelming and we're like, Okay, this is our biggest time of year or, you know, biggest time for revenue, you know, and the big most people No really spring break when people think of a dog or do they think spring break? You know, busy, busy, busy. Everybody seems to go somewhere. You know, it was definitely heart wrenching at first, but we thought, Okay, this is what we're given. You know, it's unprecedented circumstances, there's no control over it. And so we'll just, you know, go with it. Normally, we closed our doggy daycare during spring break time because we're just too busy with the borders. We thought, okay, we'll keep that open. And we'll see what this entails. Of course, it just kept getting worse and worse before it got better. But, you know, we ended up with just I think the one week of spring break, we had one dog in our care and the next week, we had two cats and a dog. Wow, a lot different than, you know, the 30 to 40 dogs were used to each week there and sometimes more depending on multi dog households. So it was definitely different. You know, I had staff booked, you know, double for that timeframe. So you know, I was like, Okay, I can handle this on my own. You know, I initially laid off staff, you know, for the first few weeks because we didn't really know you know, they call it the novel Coronavirus for a reason there's a lot of unknown with it. So I thought, you know, we need to play it safe and, and so we had them come in and, and so it was just, there's just a lot of challenges with that it's something that no business owners ever prepared for or any person for that matter. So it definitely took a huge hit on our boarding and, you know, I feel like we're going to see this throughout the rest of this year, people are going to be worried and scared to travel. And we understand that, you know, I probably wouldn't go anywhere at least for the next few months anyway. You know, you're supposed to stay home. That's what their their their guidelines are anyway, so our doggy daycare has, you know, not taking too much of her. We're running right now at about 50% capacity, but that's more on purpose. We want to keep those numbers down, especially since there's no proof that that dogs can contract COVID-19 there's only been one dog and a couple cats but You just never know where it's going to go from here. In our area in particular, we haven't seen a lot of cases our county is holding steady at 11 right now, I know that may change with testing and things like that. So we're not as concerned with the dogs still socializing, but we're just trying to keep our numbers down. And you know, we're just doing our precautions of wearing our masks. And you know, when we're greeting customers, we're operating at curbside services. Even though we are allowed to have one to two customers in our shop at a time. I think that's just a safer protocol. There's no reason we have to have people in our lobby. So we just need them out in the in the parking lot and put one of our leashes on their dog and have them take their harness or collar and leash off and then that way, we're not touching the same items. And you know, they have the option to pay on the phone or we do have a, you know, a credit card machine that we can sanitize after each transaction. So we're just trying to do everything we can to to keep it safe with our friends. And keep everybody healthy and our staff as well, but also still be able to operate as somewhat of a capacity. right because there is quite a trade off there of needing to operate at some capacity to be to continue to operate as a business but also trying to meet all these guidelines and expectations on you. You mentioned your staff,
Collin 11:20
how have you been handling communication with them and working with them as these things kind of change every day?
Zach Shearer 11:28
The biggest thing is just to be transparent upfront and contact them as soon as possible. When they were gone for the first few weeks, we just started group chat and I checked in with them every day. We had them do at home projects, research projects, things like that, that they could work, you know, put in for hours so that they could receive pay. We did apply for the PPP loan so that we can have assistance to keep our employees so they are now getting their full wages but we're still our staff. You know some of us are working or full hours others are only working About half or less. So we did apply for that, you know, at first I'm like, you know, I feel like I shouldn't do this. This is kind of, you know, I never thought I would take a loan out for this. But these are once again, their president in times we never were expected for them. And, you know, the government reached out to assist us business owners, and I feel like it's, you know, our place to take those and retain those good employees.
Collin 12:23
Yeah, when there is that helping, as you mentioned, like just unprecedented doesn't even that word is seems so wholly inadequate during times, like, times, like, times like this, but needing to do certain things of making decisions you never thought you'd have to make. And but you but there you are, right. And as you mentioned, like, right. Yeah, at the beginning, didn't know quite what to do. But these little steps, just, you know, keep walking, keep moving forward along the way.
Zach Shearer 12:52
Right. And I think everything with the whole virus in general happens so fast. And then of course, with the loans too, there's, you know, looking into some of the Those things, you know, I feel like a lot of things are rushed. But in that's why immediately I just have everybody not come in and as far as my staff goes, because there was it just happened so fast, you know, we were, there was really nothing to do if we all came in. So I didn't want to, you know, at first lay off, but that's kind of why I was forced to do with how fast things happened.
Collin 13:20
The thinking about the pet boarding, and in that kind of segment of the pet care industry, what are some specific or maybe some unique challenges that you've been facing that maybe dog walkers or groomers haven't had to face?
Zach Shearer 13:34
Well, definitely pre COVID time, there was challenges as well, but obviously we're facing more of those now. But you know, the biggest thing with Dog Boarding as far as challenges that a whole it's seven days a week, it's you know, all the time, a lot of dog walkers and groomers and things like that are Monday through Friday or Monday through Saturday, or some of them less than that. boardings all the time. You know, those dogs are You know, at a normal time you know now we've had times where we haven't had dogs at all for a few days at a time. In fact right now we only have two dogs until the weekend because it's starting we're starting to get a few more bookings I think people are starting to get more comfortable because our state's one of the first that's opening things back up, but still nothing to where we're normally at this time of year. But we're definitely I mean we Dog Boarding You know, we've got that challenge of kennel cough going around sometimes. late summer we deal with that. So to me, this is kind of, you know, if it does affect dogs, it's kind of the same type of thing that we've dealt with before and just making sure we're transparent with our customers if we we have seen dog kennel cough in the last year or two, usually late summer we'll have it in there we'll go through and facilities around us as well. And we just as soon as we hear first dog cough we call though the the owners of the dogs that are coming in for the next few weeks and we just tell them, you know, and a lot of them will still come they know that It is treatable. And that, you know, this is just all part of it. When dogs congregate together, there's risk of exposure. We've, you know, put in pet therapy, and that's a company that does UV lights through. Our artists go through our HR systems. And so we've spent the money to do that when we had a couple of years ago, and we've tried to do things to show our customers that we do care about them and that their pets are our family. So that's definitely a big challenge, though, is trying to explain that to people that it is just like us getting an upper respiratory infection, but it's hard because we can't relate to our pets like we can our kids. So that's definitely a challenge. Another challenge is, you know, when people travel and they come home from their vacation, they want their pet right away. And we do have hours in place so that we can still have, you know, somewhat of a family life even though this is a very demanding business. So that's definitely a challenge as well. We'll have people trying to call us at all hours and wanting to pick up their pets in our clients have been wonderful and have been understanding about that. But it takes a little bit to make sure people know that it's just not an all the time thing that they have set hours that they need to pick up. So that's definitely another challenge and then probably, you know, finding staff that's willing to work on the weekends and those those funky hours, you know, dogs still need to be fed was taken care of on Christmas morning. So the a lot of jobs, you know, you get those holidays off back, we try to do more of a rotation or some people want to work the holidays if they don't have a lot going on. So, but there's definitely, you know, challenges that come with this just like any other business, but, you know, the boarding definitely has those. Those few that I touched on there.
Collin 16:39
I'm curious about some recent guidelines that came out from the CDC and some of your thoughts on those, some came out and they said, to treat pets like you would a member of your family and to socially distance pets. And so I was curious how you are viewing those guidelines or what kind of impact That's has for you at your facility. Well, when I first saw that headline, I think somebody made probably one of the pet pages I follow on Facebook or something shared that from the CDC and, you know, my first thought in my head is Oh, here we go, you know,
Zach Shearer 17:14
moving on to the affecting the pet pet. Now, after we've dealt with all this, you know, human thing, the human in the people side of it, you know, for so long, I thought, Oh, here we go. You know, we've already lost business. We've already closed down. Now we're reopening and now a pug has it, you know? And I thought, okay, now Now, how do I deal with this? You know, like I said, our area hasn't been affected near like some of the states in the cities, but it's obviously still a risk. You know, there's been positive cases in our county. So what we're doing is, like I mentioned before, we're trying to keep our capacity down, like our state right now. The guidelines are, you know, we can gather with 25 people or less is that was starting May 4, which would have been yesterday. And then They're starting to open up retail stores again restaurants will reopen next week. And obviously this is if the cases keep declining in our in Indiana here in our state. So I'm we're trying to make sure that we just have small groups of play with the dogs. We're also making sure our customers know that it is a risk, you know, your dogs are playing with other people's dogs, you know, who may have been in contact with that we really have no idea. We're asking our customers to be honest if they are symptomatic, to stay home to vouch for bringing their dogs, and we do have several, like I said, we were running with our doggy daycare, 50% capacity. We have a lot of those people that have just opted to not come back yet until things calm down and get better. We've had some calls this week after our state is open things back up saying hey, you know our dog needs to get out of the house and we're headed back to work so we need to bring Bella in for daycare. So we're going to see more of those calls. We have To space to separate dogs and to have smaller groups. So I think that's going to help us and benefit us from having so much of the risk. Our grooming shop is a smaller area. Our salon has three tables and you know two tubs and so the dogs are all right in there together. So we we are an appointment based salon with our grooming appointments. So that helps you know the dog comes in, it's only here for an hour or two and the next one comes in, you know, so we have some that stay for daycare and get groom so they're out all day until the afternoon. So I think the way our facility is set up and how you know, we've gone with cutting back our capacity of dogs in our care in a lot of those that are just choosing not to come back yet. I feel like we're going to be able to avoid that but also still follow that
Collin 19:51
one of the things that I know people are concerned about is being able to still operate and make an income But limited capacity. So how have you found that balance in that decision making as far as how many dogs you're willing to take on to to, you know, pay bills and keep things running versus limiting capacities so you don't have as much potential spread or exposure?
Zach Shearer 20:17
To be honest, we haven't had to really get to that point yet, just because we've had so many people that have opted out of vacationing and things. So as far as our mourning side of things, I think the most dogs we've had at a time so far has been five. You know, in the next couple of weeks, we're coming up on Memorial Day weekend where a lot of people do things. And if our state keeps on track, I think we'll have more closer to 20 dogs that time. So we haven't really had to address that yet. But you know, we may have to turn some away. But like I said, if our numbers continue to decrease, I think we'll just continue to operate as usual. RJ care we do. We've had a lot of people that have wanted to bring this Dogs, you know, on the same day say like, for instance, this week Thursday's been popular, I'm assuming it's weather related. We've had to turn some away and say, you know, we've got too many for that day with everything going on. Let's just do another day and they're like, they're real accommodating, you know, and, and okay with that, you know, okay, we'll come next week. We really haven't had very many people worried about the doggy daycare and the grooming side of it. I think it was two Tuesday's ago. So two weeks from today, our grooming was able to open back up. We've got guidelines to follow with that, you know, the appointment base, the dogs have to be paid right away before any grooming. We have to wear masks to greet the customers, things like that. We had calls, we had over 100 calls, you know, between the 230 Governor's speech and 10 o'clock that night.
Collin 21:48
Oh my goodness,
Zach Shearer 21:50
really slowed people down in that regard. I mean, obviously people are worried about traveling to other states and things like that are in so the boarding is cut down. So it seems like an art area. There's not a huge scare with with that, but I was kind of shocked by that because you know, it seems like when you're on Facebook and things everybody's posting something COVID related and Ross but yeah, we I think they were everybody's working from home and they're sick of those stinky dogs. We haven't seen a lot of you know, I know some of the other pages and things and listening to other podcasts and stuff some of the people in our industry have dealt with the complete opposite where people are afraid to bring their dogs to, to gather together and things like that, but ours is seem to almost be the opposite but but you know, we just have to be prepared for that. And you know, if someone's uncomfortable with it, you know, we're not going to tell them their dog's gonna be completely alone. So you know if they opt out for for daddy daycare, we are totally interested in that.
Collin 22:45
You mentioned the house some of your clients and community are are reacting to this and there was an article recently featured in pets plus describing some of this. So tell us about the article and how the community and clients have have come together and you
Zach Shearer 23:02
honestly I am so humbled and grateful by the amazing plants that I have to say that their family is an understatement. You know, I would do anything for them. We definitely have a huge village and a huge amount of supporters for Zach's pet services. That article was just one of many gestures, kind gestures that were given to us during this time. That one in particular was a man that had his dog scheduled for boarding for a week they were going out of the country and they waited till the last minute and their plans got changed the the resort called him and said there's just absolutely no way with the travel restrictions in place here now so they had to cancel and he had just messaged me late that night before and said, you know, no Sophie for this week. But all you know, I'm going to stop by are you're open eight to 12 tomorrow, right? And I'm like, yeah, you know, I didn't think anything of it at the time. And so he showed up right when we opened on that Saturday morning. With a dozen donuts and $200 and I was just blown away by the Bible, you know, kindness and you know, that client in particular is just always so sweet. He's always, you know, ask him how we are and making sure he invests in our, in our conversation about our lives and everything. And he's truly, you know, more than just a client and but we've seen, you know, we've had checks in the mail and we've had meals delivered to us hot, you know, knocking on the front door. During this time, we've had cards sent to us, you know, handwritten cards talking about how much they're thankful for us. We've had people just call and leave messages on our, on our voicemail at the shop and just saying that they're praying for us, they're thinking, thinking of us. And so yeah, I'm definitely blown away. And you know, that's one thing if there's anything to like about this whole situation, I think that we can, you know, US business owners can say is the communities have have come together to support us. I've loved seeing the lines that they take away. trunks for takeout. And for local businesses and things like that. And, you know, we were in a special, we sold gift cards, and a lot of our spring break, people called and bought gift cards because they knew that they would use that in the future. So that was a way that we could generate some income, and they could also support us too. So we've we've just been blown away by all the support that we've been given. And, you know, we've, I've just, I've never had quite this feeling, you know, at first, I was just so upset about the whole thing, and it's still not a great thing. I mean, none of us are excited about this. We're all you know, upset about how many lives this has affected, whether it's, you know, family members getting sick, or you know, it affecting businesses, things like that. But that's definitely one thing that I think we all hope will stay after. This is how we're all treating each other and how businesses are, are being supported so much.
Collin 25:53
Yeah, I think during the busy times, we can as business owners get so focused on Kind of the nitty gritty and the day to day functions that we can kind of lose that sense of community or really see the care and the awesome people that are around us. I mean, we recognize that we have amazing clients. But in times like this, like, yeah, it has been really cool to see and watch and hear about an experience to have. Wow, like, we really are a lot more than than just, you know, it's not, it's more than just a transaction. It really is a family and a true community coming and supporting each other and I'm right with you this if there's one thing to take away from this, it's it's a hope that those kind of actions and behaviors never get taken for granted again, and you know, in that they continue moving forward.
Zach Shearer 26:43
Absolutely. And I think some of my most treasured moments running my business are standing out in the parking lot talking to you know, a dog's owner after a long day a doggy daycare or after their trip back home from from Florida and just standing out there and talking to them and making sure that they know that I can hear about them and their lives and they're in their pets. And, you know, sometimes I often can waste so much time and not get a lot of things done that are on my to do list for that day. But I feel like I've done something, I've built those relationships with those customers. And that's how I train my staff to, you know, I have no problem with them taking the time to get to know my customers. And you know, just build those relationships because pets are family, we all know it. And we want to make sure that they know that they're, they're loved by us, and we want to make sure that they know their family,
Collin 27:32
thinking forward and looking ahead to the rest of 2020. What is the rest of the year look like for you? And what are some of your thoughts on the pet care industry at large?
Zach Shearer 27:43
Yeah, definitely. I know they call it a novel Cronus for a reason, because there's so much unknown that we don't know what the future is going to hold. But I definitely think that you know, some of us, especially with the boarding and the pet sending that we may struggle for just a little bit here until we can get back up on our feet. With the people having the fear of traveling, you know, or if things get bad while they're gone, they don't want to get stuck somewhere. You know, we've heard I've heard that a lot from people. So I think it's going to take a little bit before everybody's operating where they were just you know, back in, in early March. But I think that, you know, we're going to get through it, that's for sure. We're going to rely on our, our staff and our customers and everything to come up with ways to you know, find other means of revenue and things like that, you know, in our aspect. You know, I think we're going to see the boarding be our longest drawn out suffering as far as the revenue goes, but we're so I think we'll come up with more things for daycare and grooming and then try to build that up and everything you know, because people aren't going to be going out of town. You know, if our state does stay on track, they say by july fourth, we will be operating as normal as we were a few minutes ago. I think we will get busy again, then. In, you know, you just have to have faith that, that it's all going to come through and, you know, there's obviously been challenging times that we've all been through before, you know, whether that's personal or with business and, and we'll get through them. I think that, you know, it's going to take a little bit here, you know, it's not just going to go away tomorrow, it's going to be something we're going to deal with. And I think, you know, it's going to be a few years, we're still going to see cases of it just not at the severity of how things are now. So I think, you know, we're still going to have a good 2020 we've got to make the best of it. And I encourage all the other candles and pet sitters and groomers and things to just stay positive and to know that we will get through this and we'll get through this together. And, you know, I've seen lots of businesses in our area, you know, restaurants, things like that, who have closed permanently, and that's something that I just can't even imagine and I know that with the support and of our of my family and our friends and customers And everything that we will get through this and that people love us and love what we do and what we stand for. So I just recommend that everybody stays positive. And I hope that end of 2020 is how it started at the beginning, we were having a great two months, January and February, those were usually our slower months. And we were, I mean, everything was great. And then all of a sudden, you know, it was like, a boulder was thrown on top of us, you know. And so now here we are trying to get ourselves out from under it, but we're all in the same boat. That's one thing that this is affecting everybody. You know, I mean, there's challenges that certain businesses face farmers face, you know, problems when we have a huge year of rainfall, and they can't get crops, harvested, things like that. You know, this is something that's affecting everybody. It just may be at a different time. I'm hoping that end of summer and fall into winter will be crazy busy for us and we will the phone will be ringing constantly and I wish that upon all of the people who are most business because we want success for everybody and we We just have to get through this bump in the road.
Collin 31:01
It is it is a bump in the road. And yeah, I remember looking back to January in February, and going wow, this year is going to be amazing. There's Wow, what else can we do? How else can we invest? How else can we grow and then it was just kind of like the rug pulled out from underneath you. But it's it's really neat to hear you you've been able to, to pivot some of your services and adjust the capacities and and continue to to look forward to brighter days. And then you know, to have those amazing clients come alongside you and really cheer you on. And absolutely like we want nothing more than the end of 2020 to be the best year for all the pet sitters and pet care providers out there and to get through this together.
Zach Shearer 31:44
I agree and I love what you guys are doing with your podcasts and supporting everybody and having people come in and share their stories and share their challenges so that we can all you know listen to those and help feed off of one another and and get through this together.
Collin 31:59
Well thank you Zach I do appreciate that we we want to be allowing people to tell their stories and because especially in times like this, we can all feel alone. And like maybe we're the only one that feels a certain way or has a certain problem. And right now that's really amplified. So it's even more important now than ever to be sharing and telling stories and reaching out to people that you know, checking on them, seeing how they're doing and learning from others through this whole process so that we can all all be better on the on the other side was curious about what are some some tools or resources that you use or have been using or maybe things that you've been reading or listening to to help you during this time that you would like to recommend to other pet sitters.
Zach Shearer 32:46
I would definitely suggest using the resources to talk with people in the same industry as you you know, they don't even have to be close by and you know, listen to podcasts and read more cuisines, look up articles, see how other people are dealing with these things. And that can help you definitely get the advice you need. And, you know, this is a unique, especially in our area, I'm one of, I think, four candles in our county or even the nearby counties. So, you know, it's not like a restaurant where they can just, you know, meet with a bunch of fellow restaurant owners and discuss things and stuff. It's a little more difficult. So I've been thankful for finding the tools such as, you know, your podcasting and example to others, you know, and just finding things, you know, there's no harm in reaching out to somebody and saying, you know, this is my situation I'm dealing with in regards to my industry is there any, you know, help that you can give me to kind of aid me in that and you know, people have been so client on you know, to help with that. The other thing I can suggest is definitely research in ways that you can help your certain business during a time like this, just like the guidelines that were given from our state when we reopen to grooming and you know, First I thought, oh, okay, like these, these are things that we didn't always do before. Like, I have to wear a mask, really. But I have to realize that there's risks and not doing that, you know, there are people that can be asymptomatic and we don't even know it. So but I would just, you know, come up with ways to make it fun for your staff and for yourself. You know, obviously, this, these are times that are not fun, but you You just have to stay positive and make sure that you're uplifting one another and in definitely just reach out to anybody in regards to this, and just see how much advice you can get. Yeah, I've definitely I've definitely listened to way too many podcasts. But I feel like I've learned something from you know, all the different podcasts and not even just pet sitters and in boarding in general, you know, the whole COVID-19 and in general, it's been interesting to listen to different opinions and different advice from from professionals all across the country.
Collin 34:56
Yeah, it has been an interesting time to be able to listen to those kind of varying voices and opinions. And because there's so much up for discussion, as you have mentioned a couple times, like nobody really knows how this is going to land or where this is going to go. So if you are wanting to get some information, read and listen to as many as voices as possible, and start working your way through, through that, that information,
Zach Shearer 35:21
you know, even your family and your friends, the people that you're close with, you know, run it by, run your issue by them, you know, they may have absolutely no idea what lies in your industry, but sometimes it helps just talking to somebody and just getting it all out. And they may not tell you anything that's worth knowledge, you know, for what you're trying to deal with, but it may just come for you and that'll help you sleep that night. You know, yeah, just speaking from my own experience. And you know, my wife and I run the run by Kendall on everything together. And you know, we'll just sit here at night and just go over the same thing over and over again, but we're at least getting all of our, you know, questions and our struggles out to each And we may not get anywhere that night with conversation, but at least we're, we're talking about it and we can, you know, know that somebody cares and we can express all those things to somebody.
Collin 36:11
Zach, thank you so much for coming on. I love hearing your story and all that you have have done to continue to offer really cool and great services to your clients. And I'm glad to hear that you and your family are doing well too. If people wanted to follow along with what you're doing and maybe reach out and get in touch them, how could they do that?
Zach Shearer 36:32
We have a Facebook page and also an Instagram account. So Instagram is x pet services. And then our Facebook page is x pet Services LLC. So we post on those daily or almost daily depending on how busy we are in that day. But um, those are our best things. We don't have a website at this time we've been able to just operate off of our social media pages and we've got quite the following there and we love to interact with our customers. They're, as well. So if you want to follow those pages, you know, we would definitely encourage it. We like to do some fun things and post funny pictures and things like that of the pets in our care.
Collin 37:10
Very cool. Yeah, definitely. Everybody go and follow Zach on those places too. And Zack will want to have you back on in a couple more months to do a check in and see how you're doing. And you can fill us in on what's happened in the interim. So again, thank you for coming on today.
Zach Shearer 37:25
Well, thank you for having me. I've appreciated it and I look forward to being back.
Collin 37:30
While the challenges that each one of us face is unique, and inherently different, because of our past experiences, our business models or where we live. The one thing that is true is that we are all in this together. by reaching out to others and sharing our experiences and our unique challenges. We help everybody and it helps people understand that we're truly not alone. One thing that Zack mentioned during the conversation that stuck with me was The key to making a good business is to make sure that you are creating new things. And while this isn't exactly the opportunities that a lot of us were looking for, to be creative, there are a lot of new things that we can start there that's for your business. So new services, new service areas, maybe new positions within your business to promote people to or what new things in your life, your personal life, have you been wanting to start or maybe haven't had the time to before. In the end, as I mentioned, we are all in this together, and we are better together and stronger as a community. As we think of new things to start, one of those could be to get some online education. Pro trainings comm has an extensive online course catalog available, and at checkout, you can enter the code CPR dash, pet sitter confessional to get 10% off of any of their online courses. We are still collecting your stories, so give us a call at six 363648260 leave us a voicemail. Let us know how you're doing, what you've been up to during this time and what your hopes and expectations are for the future. We'll talk to you again soon.
